Earthquake rumbles through Toronto

City officials say there has been no major damage to city infrastructure after a 5.0 magnitude earthquake jostled parts of Ontario and Quebec earlier today.

Though further investigations are taking place, the TTC and transportation services have reported no damage or interruptions to service. The city has also received no calls concerning bridge or building problems.

“It was 5.0, which was a fairly significant event,” said Janet Drysdale, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada. “However, I wouldn’t expect major structural damage from an earthquake of this size.”

She pointed out that Canadian building codes have taken earthquake hazard design into account since the 1950’s.

“Any modern building should sustain earthquakes of this size or even larger,” Drysdale said.

The earthquake was centered near the Quebec town of Val-Des-Bois, approximately an hour’s drive north of Ottawa and struck around 1:41 p.m., sending out jolts that were felt as far away as Windsor, Quebec City, Sudbury and parts of Massachusetts. Although approximately 30 similar events occur per year in the area, known as the Western Quebec Seismic Zone, only a handful are strong enough to be felt, Drysdale said.

The last event of this size, a magnitude 5.2 event, occurred on New Year’s Day 2000, near Temiscaming, Quebec.

The region’s largest earthquake on record was a magnitude 6.5 event which occurred in 1935, also near Temiscaming.

Tuesday’s earthquake caused some brief moments of panic in the city. Hundreds of people posted messages reporting the event on social networking site, Twitter, while some office buildings evacuating workers. So far there have been no reports of after-shocks or tremors.